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I’d just finished watching Episode Three of Season 7, Once Upon A Time on Hulu. As usual the previews for Episode Four were not included and of course no clip of that exists on HULU either. So I decided to hit YouTube because of course ABC has thought of this yes?

Opening up Google, my eye immediately snatches the top of Cinderella/Jacinda’s head. Obvi’s I was clicking it. The article from Deadline.combasically quantified what we all knew was bound to happen.

Proclaiming to the world,

‘Once Upon a Time’ & ‘Marvel’s Inhumans’ Slip To Demo Ratings Lows”

Nellie Andreeva who covers TV for the site states,

” ABC’s female-friendly Once Upon a Time (0.5 adults 18-49 rating, 2.52 million total viewers) that tied for the biggest demo drop (-0.2) on Friday to hit a new *L+SD series low.”

Once Upon A Time’s dip in ratings is just another symptom of all Season 7 shows, few survive to air a season 8.

Move it to Friday at 8pm when everyone is out doing stuff, watch the ratings plummet and the hand them the axe. It’s not shocking, but foreboding of one of my favorite shows. (and I’m still coming to grips with the end of Scandal)

The storyline though partially recycled actually has a creative twist with elements of the orignal show that we remember and loved. Much how Snow White and the Evil Queen shared a sordid past that fueled Regina’s ire for Snow. “Cinder” Ella has somehow played a hand in the death albeit a temporary one, of Lady Tremaine’s daughter Anastasia.

Lady Tremaine has figured out how to save the girls very last breath (That’s new), She conceals her in a coffin much like Regina kept Daniel in MythHaven.

Keeping the flashback’s we need to understand why any of this is happening, Once has so far mirrored the love story of Snow White and Prince Charming. Back in Hyperion Heights, Lucy struggles to help her parents remember themselves much like Henry had to convince Emma that she was indeed the savior.

This Season definitely has seen a more ethnic presence in the cast, selecting both Cinderella a main female lead while making Tiana (who was black anyway) a series regular and what I’ll take a guess at is Hyperion Height’s version of either Ruby or Belle and with the inclusion of the Frog Princess there’s plenty more coming our way.

I for one would be crushed if they cancelled Once Upon A Time. I’m invested in where this goes and need for Mr. Horowitz to stretch his brain to its limits until he has managed to Oncify every last fairy tale we can think of !

At least until Henry has kids, then maybe stop…

Just a side-note the article doesn’t account for all alternative viewings such as HULU and other streaming services only live and same day coverage.

Zelena a.k.a. The Wicked Witch of the West’s character is a notable one. First-born of Cora, a miller’s daughter, a.k.a. Queen of Hearts. Abandoned, so her mother could grab the crown she so desperately craved, she’s resents Regina for being the one Cora kept. So eager to surpass her sister, Zelena has managed to repeat her mother’s mistakes.

Tonight’s episode takes us back to OZ for a glimpse of the puzzling romance of Zelena and Hades startign with the spell that’d bring them together. Zelena, still ruling in OZ had plans to create a time spell that would send her back to before Cora abandoned her.

She’d need a brain and having kidnapped the scarecrow she nearly succeeded in stealing his. Until Dorothy, who returned to Oz per the request of the Munchkins, came in to stop her. With the help of TOTO they escape leaving Zelena furious.

She immediately rushes to Munchkinland demanding answers, what she gets instead is attention from the Underworld’s Lord and Master. Hades spins a tail of treachery, that Zeus somehow tricked him into being stuck in the Underworld with a frozen heart and that only true love’s kiss will start his heart again. He means to use her time spell to go back and change his fate. The two bond over their vengeance and sibling rivalry.

He offers to help her by leading her to Dorothy, in turn she will help him with a spell of his own. Zelena tracks down Dorothy and manages to get the Scarecrows brain. Returning to her lair, Hades reveals that he is now in love with her. When she spurns him he vows she’ll regret it.

Rushing to the present day Underworld we see that Rumple is being forced to create a portal to bring living beings there. Rumple succeeds in doing so just as Zelena posing as the Blue Fairy comes to steal Baby Hood from Belle. Her plans when the real Blue Fairy appears but most importantly when the portal opens she and Belle and Baby Hood are sucked through it. Zelena injured and magicless is bested by Belle who runs to find help.

She finds Rumple who reveals, he’s still the Dark One; she’s pregnant, and that the baby will belongs to Hades. Demanding he fix things, Belle takes the baby and continues to look for help. Zelena limps her way to Regina and Robin asking for help. Eventually tracking Belle down, as we suspected Zelena tries stealing her away. Helpless to stop a crying baby without magic, Zelena decides the safest place for the child is with Robin and Regina.

Zelena goes off to find Hades, but as the two square off he confesses that this was all a ploy to show his love for her. Claiming to have tried to smuggle the baby away for her he begs to prove his love. Tearfully she declines this time leaving to go get her daughter back.

Let the games begin, the underworld just got more hectic. Next week Rumple faces off against Gaston….OMG!

The page remained an unforgiving shade of white. For hours she’d stared at it, glaring brightly back at her, taunting her lack of progress. She’d been told she’d made a mistake, the life of a writer was not one that she could survive on. She heard these things while blazing through the newest Best Seller on the NY Times reading list. Oprah made millions on a book club membership for people to tell her that becoming a writer wasn’t lucrative.

She’d always had to defend her passion. The bubbly loud mouth would always simmer down when you placed a good story in her hands. Her brows furrowed glasses dangling from the bridge of her nose. She would momentarily immerse herself in a world of fantasy.

Where knights risked everything for true love and the pursuit of a good battle. Magic could be used to force sides, all things were possible. She allowed herself to believe this, because closing the book she was shown all things were not possible. She was told that if you don’t move fast enough opportunities will pass you by.

Told that her caramel colored skin made her desire to dress up in costumes unacceptable; that not enough people shared her interests for her to survive on sheer passion alone. It was unwise not to look for other venues or to refine her visions to match other people’s aspirations because her aspirations were too ambitious.

She often wondered if she was lighter or a man if any one would have ever told her that she was too ambitious. Wondered how much of her writing those “advising” her actually read. She been writing one thing or another everyday since she figured out how to hold a pen. She wondered sometimes rhetorically, how many dreams they had pushed aside because someone said so.

Looking up she noticed that her page was no longer a blank face staring at her but a fluid moving entity that grew as she allowed her heart to spill into the keyboard. Her words stretched across the screen marching in time with the beat of her heart. Her words, that they’d often told her she’d used too many of, could no longer be ignored.

She never needed the wealth or fame that would naturally come. She needed to know that her voice mattered, forgetting the only person it needed to matter to was the one using it.

It’d been a family heirloom, the dusty book bound in worn animal flesh. She’d always been fascinated by the stones on the cover. Both a journal and an encyclopedia of sorts, it was among the things willed to her by her late uncle.

Vincent Draconis, renowned paleontologist had been keeping a secret. Though he had built his name and his fortune on the research and study of bugs and fossils they’d only funded his true passion.

He’d spent all of his youth and most of his elderly years pursuing and recording the few lasting breeds of an ancient creature. He’d stumbled on the existence of dragons. At first he needed proof that they’d really existed, he was sure the findings would make him famous.

Vincent had bee contacted by a secret order, sworn to protect the magical beings. At the height of their existence they were beings of untold power, every piece of their bodies could be used in potent spells. The dragons were almost hunted into extinction.

As a girl Erin had remembered going on many adventures with her uncle but none to explain this revelation. She’d seen him hunched over the book often, furrowed brow scribbling frantically while mumbling into a tape recorder. These moments she wandered the corridors of his mansion.

She’d been fourteen when she’d come to stay with her father’s brother; after a house fire claimed her remaining parent. Erin had lived through several tragedies at once for such a young age. Her mother weakened from the stress of childbirth gave her life so she could survive. At thirty – five Evan Draconis would fumble through her early years. They’d survived unscathed when Vincent fresh from college came to stay the first time. He’d become infatuated with fossils and decided to travel the world to study them. Her earliest memories were of his beard and backpack.

The backpack lay abandoned in the corner of the office now. his desk was still cluttered with maps and charts. He’d been planning to go somewhere prior to his stroke. Vincent was always full of life but he was a man of terrible health. In between meals he enjoyed copious amounts of liquor and fat. He was beloved, but had grown plump and slightly senile in his later years. The imminent stroke that claimed him was of no surprise; though it was heartbreaking just the same.

A knock at the door relinquished her from her thoughts.

The attorney had brought a flash drive she was to view alone and only after agreeing to the task on the drive. She’d signed her name and received a box promised to have everything she’d need for her new life. The lawyer shook hands and departed.

A common thread of Once Upon A Time is it’s focus on family, so tonight’s episode fondly titled “The Brothers Jones” was sure to offer insight into the familial workings of our hunky Hook and his big brother Liam. The previews gave of the hard points of the episode, Hook newly rescued by Emma still guilt ridden that he succumbed to darkness is tracked down in the Underworld by his brother Liam.

Through a flashbacks we see how Liam has always looked out for Killian caring for his younger brother after their father sold them into servitude aboard the ship of a ruthless captain. Liam’s dreams as you may know at this point is to be get a naval commission. (Mostly from what I can see is a desire for the notoriety it’d bring.)

Remember in Labor of Love when Cruella tasked Henry with returning her to the mortal world? Welp in this episode Cruella drives haphazardly through Underbrook searching for the soul of the magic quill. Instead Henry finds the apprentice who’s unfinished business is actually guiding him to making the right decisions in regards to the quill. He the tells Henry exactly where to find it.

Snow and David go to retrieve the key to the apprentice’s mansion. James, David’s evil twin brother, is sheriff of Underbrook and has the ley at the sheriff’s station. He’s also porking Cruella. When David can’t take pretending any longer she reveals she’d always known it was him. They share a touching moment and Cruella explains how deeply hurt James feels for being the one their mother gave away to the king.

As of now James is still M.I.A. (probably because he’s busy being David) so key in hand the troupe heads to the mansion where the Storybook that has Hades story is said to be.

Liam sacrifices his dreams of being a navy man when he comes back to find Killian unconscious, drunk and broke from gambling. Refusing to leave his brother alone on the ship he decides to stay and make the next run. The captain had been hunting the famed eye of the storm a crystal found in the center of a hurricane. The voyage would’ve killed them all, so Liam and Killian cause a mutiny and attempt to stear it out of he storm.

Liam attempted at first to rescue the men aboard the ship, but when visited by Hades he agrees to sell the crews souls to save himself and Killian, Hades even throws in the eye of the storm so that Liam can get that naval commission he’d been wanting. That secret was one that Hades was all to willing to reveal to Hook should Liam refuse to tear his pages from the storybook.

Liam acquiesces, but is found out by Emma who while outing him also gets into a fight with Hook. As she storms off, Liam convinces him to give her time to cool off. Hook also sees the ink from the books pages on his hand and demands the truth, just as the drowned sailors come for revenge. Seems the old captain overheard Liam’s conversation with Hades.

The men are kidnapped and walked to the fire river and surprisingly Hades saves Liam whilst planning to kill Killian. Liam sacrifices himself for his brother and earns redemption, he ushers the souls of the sailors onto a magnificent vessel. Liam’s true heaven.

The battle for Hook’s soul has ended he decides to return to Storybrooke with Emma. Henry finally tells someone/David about the quill/ink and Cruella’s request. His cries to be more than just a spectator heard he finally understands the apprentice’s warning. His ability to write the stories is the key to finding out why Hades doesn’t want his pages read.

If you’ve seen the previews next week Zelena picks up with Hades where Cora left off with Rumple except it’s in the Underworld…

“It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.”

Last month it was announced that both parts of the stage play’s script would be released in print and digital formats as Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I & II. It will receive a first edition, entitled “Special Rehearsal Edition”, corresponding to the preview shows and will be published on July 31, 2016 both Harry and J.K. Rowling’s birthday.

Despite a flood of request from her fans, J.K. Rowling has made it clear she at present is not interested in turning the play into a movie. She has advertised however, that Fantastic Beast set to open in November 2016, will be a trilogy.

The Cursed Child is officially the eighth book in the Harry Potter canon and will be released in two versions: a Special Rehearsal Edition using the script performed in the play’s previews, before being replaced later by a Definitive Collector’s Edition.

This will be the first tale in the Harry Potter series not to be actually written by J.K. Rowling. The two-part play was actually written by Jack Thorne, although it was based on an original idea by Rowling, Thorne and the stage play’s director John Tiffany.

The leads of our original three Hogwarts alum have already been chosen. Olivier Award-winning actress Noma Dumezweni has been chosen as Hermione alongside, The History Boys’ Jamie Parker as Harry Potter and and Les Miserables actor Paul Thornley as Ron.

The play will receive its world premiere at London’s Palace Theatre on July 31, 2016

Seven child actors will alternate across the leading roles to play the younger counterparts for those adult roles already announced.

Her boisterous personality spoke for her. Made up for her petite stature. She could not and would not go unnoticed. There was almost an adolescent quality to her, it was both endearing and infuriating at times. She was polite, occasionally absent minded, but only because she was already off to another bright idea. She posessed a mystifying inner calm that could not be stirred. Many wondered about the stranger, they’d heard her voice before actually glancing upon her face.